Politics, the choice of the week
On Ukraine, the war of words on the left
Audio 03:03
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, candidate of La France Insoumise (LFI) for the presidency of 2022, at the National Assembly on March 1, during the debate around the invasion of Ukraine by Russia.
AFP - BERTRAND GUAY
By: Aurelien Devernoix
2 mins
While all eyes are on the war in Ukraine, a verbal conflict is raging in France between socialists and ecologists on one side and rebels on the other.
The former accuse Jean-Luc Mélenchon of an attitude that is at least ambiguous vis-à-vis Russia.
And that really annoys the Unsub.
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It was a vaudeville scene that played out a few days ago in the National Assembly: while elected Socialists harshly criticized Jean-Luc Mélenchon's position on the Ukrainian conflict in front of journalists, the Insoumise MP Clémentine Autain who comes just spoken, retraces his steps, opens his eyes wide.
Then explodes with anger: "
these are lies, not everything is allowed in a presidential campaign, it's lamentable
", she is indignant.
Very far behind in the battle on the left for the presidential election, the socialists of Anne Hidalgo have indeed decided to attack Jean-Luc Mélenchon by the “East face”.
His back-to-back dismissal from Russia and NATO before the Moscow offensive appeared to be a political boon.
A few days earlier, a Socialist Party executive had already announced that the PS was going to hit
Comrade Mélenchon “
very hard ”.
"
Putinian agent
", "
discredited candidate
", Anne Hidalgo has indeed spared no effort, playing the card of the "
responsible left
" against a rebel "
blinded
" by his hostility vis-à-vis the States -United.
The rebels respond
From the start of the Russian offensive, Jean-Luc Mélenchon took care to point out "
the full responsibility of Vladimir Poutine
" in the conflict, recalling that unlike Anne Hidalgo who had received the Russian president as mayor of Paris, had always kept his distance from him.
Cautious, the candidate avoided throwing himself into the battle of controversies with his rivals on the left, preferring to stay above the fray and let his lieutenants reply.
The rebels have therefore launched a counter-offensive in the media and on social networks to, on the one hand, denounce the socialist "warmongers" who want to aggravate the situation by delivering arms to Ukraine and the other to present Jean-Luc Mélenchon as “
the president of peace
”, the new Jean Jaurès.
The environmental camp also on the offensive
Yannick Jadot's team nicknames the Insoumis "hibernatus", which got stuck in an analysis dating from the Cold War.
An adviser to the environmental candidate judges that Jean-Luc Mélenchon's problem is not that he supports Vladimir Poutine but that he shares the same vision of the world.
"
He is rebellious for everything except for foreign policy when it comes to Putin or the Chinese
", continues this adviser, "
it's pure cynicism
".
An accusation immediately returned by the Mélenchon camp which judges that the environmentalists are thus trying to make people forget their bad campaign.
But all are at least in agreement on one thing: this battle of words concretely illustrates the gap of ideas and the impossibility of the union of the left.
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French politics
Presidential France 2022